


Experiments In Fluid Dynamics

by Emelye



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: First Time, M/M, Schmoop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-29
Updated: 2012-02-29
Packaged: 2017-10-31 21:55:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/348747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emelye/pseuds/Emelye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For John, it was all over but the having.  He supposed it always had been.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Experiments In Fluid Dynamics

Sherlock was lying on the sofa thinking as John typed. For once, John suspected, their thoughts were likely traversing the same ground.

Sherlock was not now, if he had ever been, a sociopath, and they both knew it. He ought to have suspected. Sociopaths don’t respond to praise—don’t feel enough of anything at all to be bothered what others think of them. And Sherlock, well—

Sherlock was bothered.

He’d read into a want of feeling and absence of empathy for his family, his peers and his colleagues as sociopathy, though John was beginning to suspect the blame for the lack lay less with Sherlock and more with the lot of them being absolute bastards.

There was a stunted emotional development there, that much John certainly agreed with. Something on the autism spectrum he suspected. Perhaps Aspergers, or possibly a personality disorder, though with no obvious traumas in his past, that would be terribly unlikely.

“Don’t be an idiot, John,” came the voice over his shoulder.

“What?” He asked, irritated with himself for flinching at the sudden appearance.

“Do I really seem borderline to you?”

“No, of course not. I’d ruled it out as a matter of course, though perhaps something akin to narcissism—”

“You may be on to something there with the Aspergers.”

John nodded solemnly. “I thought so as well.”

Sherlock returned to his sofa and his thoughts. A moment later, “Of course you know this means nothing. I’m still married to my work.”

“And you’re nothing if not faithful.”

Sherlock sat up and nodded once. “Still, I suppose, for the sake of research I ought to explore this newfound capacity of mine for emotional response.”

John looked up warily. “I have a date with Sarah tonight,” he threw out casually. “Perhaps she has a friend.”

The end table was abruptly cleared of detritus as Sherlock swept his arm across it, eyes boring holes into John.

John sighed, wearily. “No, I suppose not.”

They sat in uncomfortable silence until at last Sherlock left abruptly with no word of his intentions nor any indication to follow.

It wasn’t fair, John reflected. Why should he be made to feel like a bastard for not wanting to “experiment” with his flatmate? _He wasn’t gay._ This wasn’t something he could choose. 

He wouldn’t be made to feel badly about rejecting Sherlock’s kiss that afternoon. _He wouldn’t._

_I’m not gay._

But even as he thought it he had to squash the small voice that told him that wasn’t precisely true. That there had always been _something_ —usually easily ignored and easily distracted from—but there, nevertheless, and it made the impulse to hide in Sarah so much stronger even as he felt the inescapable gravity that cast his orbit in ever decreasing circles around Sherlock from the moment they met. As if Sherlock knew about the small spot inside him and was uniquely made to seek it out and grow it until it consumed him utterly and changed—everything.

John buried his face in his hands. What was he to do? He couldn’t seriously be contemplating this.

 

Dinner with Sarah was lovely. She was a convivial, charming conversationalist and the evening looked to be heading assuredly back to her place. The odd thing was, that the moment he realized it he began expecting Sherlock to tumble through the doors of the restaurant or to receive an urgent text to meet him at St. Bart’s. But none was forthcoming and the waiter arrived with the check. As they stood, he helped Sarah into her coat. Her smile didn’t reach her eyes.

“Go on, then,” she said. “You’ve been waiting for him all night. Eyes always on the doors, John. Must be worried.”

John abashedly avoided her gaze. “I’ve told you, I’m not—”

“—No. You’re just in love with him a little bit. Goodbye, John.”

John let out an aggrieved sigh and departed homeward.

 

Sherlock was not on the sofa. John wearily climbed the stairs and finding the door to Sherlock’s room open, knocked twice and entered. “Well we can add Sarah back to the list of women utterly convinced of our—”

John’s words died in his throat. Sherlock lay naked atop his bed, apparently masturbating. His eyes were closed in concentration as his long fingers played slowly up and down the length of his erection.

“Right, sorry. Sorry,” said John, quickly averting his eyes.

Sherlock’s eyes shot open as his fist clenched and semen erupted onto his chest and belly before John had a chance to back out of the room. His eyes sparkled with mirth as the corners of his mouth quirked upward. 

John knew he ought to leave, but couldn’t help himself now, deliberately ignoring that look he had, that irritating, infuriating _look_ that suggested they were both in on some grand joke when John scarcely had the first notion what was going on. 

Sherlock’s voice, when he spoke, was fairly breathless. “I realized after you’d left it was unfair of me to ask you to abstain from sexual relations with women indefinitely if I could not myself satisfy your libido. While I knew myself to be possessed of the physical capability for arousal and release, it remained to be determined whether or not you could provide the requisite stimulus as, until recently I was unaware of my evident physical attraction to you.”

John didn’t want to ask. He asked anyway. “How could you think you were physically attracted to me if you didn’t—”

“Engorgement is an autonomic response in males past pubescent age—”

“Ah, yes. Right..”

Sherlock raised an imperious eyebrow. “So, it seems you understand the basic premise of my experiment.”

“Not in the slightest. Were you—were you thinking about _me_?” he asked, marveling as he did so how calm he sounded.

“Not initially, no. I needed a control so I thought of Mrs. Hudson.”

John blinked. “That is unbelievably disturbing.”

Sherlock cocked his head. “Yes, I thought so as well. However I found myself quite aroused whenever I thought of you. Specifically the memory of your smile, your eyes, your bare chest and legs beneath your dressing gown and, as you amply demonstrated just now, your voice.”

John swallowed against the lump in his throat. “Flattered, I’m sure, however the fact remains I’m still not gay.”

Sherlock deliberately looked toward the substantial bulge in John’s trousers, then smirked. “Really, now?”

John glared irritably. “That’s not the point Sherlock.”

Sherlock leapt off the bed, no sign of his earlier languor present. “Then _what is_? You tell me you’re not _gay_ , whatever the hell that’s supposed to mean when you stand here, pupils dilated and trousers mutinying under the strain of your arousal. You tell me you’re with _Sarah_ , who’s quite clearly ceded you to me this evening. What objection could you possibly—”

“I’m not an experiment, Sherlock! I’m a living, breathing man, and yes, I’ve got feelings capable of being hurt!”

Sherlock was quite silent for a moment. “And so do I, it would seem,” he said, sitting once more on the edge of his bed.

Sherlock looked lost, so lost and so bewildered John could hardly be responsible for what happened next as he tenderly reached over and turned Sherlock’s face to be kissed, once, gently.

“Owed you that from earlier,” he explained once they’d both opened their eyes again. “I’m sorry I—earlier. I didn’t mean to—to hurt you.” 

Sherlock’s expression was puzzled. “Oh, sod it,” said John, diving back in.

Sherlock was unmoving at first. John kissed the corners of his mouth before tugging slightly at Sherlock’s lower lip with his teeth which made him gasp, arms reflexively circling around John’s waist. John smiled into the kiss and plunged fingers into Sherlock’s hair as he set about giving the man a proper snog. 

It was revelatory, kissing Sherlock Holmes. The breathy little sounds he made were turning him on like nothing he’d ever experienced. Sherlock was pressing closer and winding his long fingers up the back of John’s shirt and jumper. He broke the kiss long enough to shrug them off, and in doing so took in his handiwork. The glassy eyes and swollen lips, the flush that went all the way down Sherlock’s chest. 

For John, it was all over but the having. He supposed it always had been.

“On the bed, Sherlock,” he gently ordered, stepping out of his trousers and with only a second’s hesitation, his pants. Climbing up beside him, he reengaged the kiss, gently replacing Sherlock’s arm around his waist when he appeared at a loss for where to place his hand. Long fingers trailed over his back as John caressed his face, his shoulder, his neck and collarbone. “Can I touch you?” John asked, voice low and more gravely than he expected.

Sherlock nodded, swallowing. “Please.”

John smiled and kissed him again as his fingers trailed down that alabaster chest and settled over the long shaft he’d been admiring from the doorway. Sherlock gasped and bucked into his hand. John began trailing kisses down his throat as he began to stroke.

“Oh,” said Sherlock. “May I—”

John thrust forward slightly and Sherlock’s hand closed around his prick. He groaned and bucked into the circle of his fingers.

“John, I—”

A moment later Sherlock came, and the feeling of him coming undone in his hand shocked the orgasm out of John, a stifled moan and they collapsed against one another, sticky and breathing heavily.

John smiled and chuckled low in his chest, leaned over to kiss the gobsmacked expression on Sherlock’s face, then left him to puzzle out and catalog his thoughts on the matter while he tracked down his pants to clean them both up. Swiping them over himself and Sherlock a time or two, he was content to haul the long man into his arms and pull the blankets over them both.

He turned out the light.

“John?”

“Hmm?”

“That was…”

John smiled into the dark when nothing else was forthcoming. “It certainly was. Good night, Sherlock.”

A moment later he felt Sherlock relax and a kiss pressed into his hair.

“Good night, John.”


End file.
